Finland's Kemira to build new coagulant plants in Germany, Spain

SINGAPORE (ICIS)--Kemira will invest €40m ($54.1m) to build two new coagulant plants in ?xml:namespace>Dormagen, Germany and in Tarragona, Spain, the Finnish chemicals firm said on Friday.

The plants, which would be located next to Bayer MaterialScience's isocyanate facilities, were expected to be operational in 2012, Kemira said in a statement.

“By positioning these new facilities next to our manufacturing units everyone benefits and it gives us a perfect outlet for hydrochloric acid of our planned TDI (toluene di-isocyanate) facility in Dormagen," said Tony Van Osselaer, head of industrial operations at Bayer MaterialScience, in the statement.

Kemira had entered into a strategic partnership with Bayer MaterialScience on the project. Under the deal, Kemira would purchase feedstock hydrochloric acid for the production of coagulants from the German firm.

Coagulants are used in water treatment applications.

The firm would be closing its existing coagulant plant at Europoort in the Netherlands, while the coagulant manufacturing operations in Tarragona would be moved to the new plant in the BayerIndustrial Park in Spain, it added.